We’ve all seen people who often complain that Tesla cars are overrated and overhyped. But there’s a reason why people talk about them so much. For one, Tesla cars are cool with features and gimmicks like none other. And secondly, these vehicles are utterly fast and can give some high-performance luxury sports and supercars.
Take the example of the Tesla Model 3. Its performance variant, dubbed as the Model 3P, is capable of doing 0-60 mph in just 3.1 seconds. To put that into perspective, except for its top trim level, the Turbo S, all the Porsche Taycan models pose an acceleration time lower than the Model 3P. The Taycan and the Model 3 aren’t direct rivals of each other but the kind of performance the Tesla has got on board, clearly justifies the hype for it.
Prices for the Taycan lineup start at around $82,700, while the Taycan Turbo S that’s quicker than the Model 3 is priced at about $185,000. Now, the Model 3P is priced at $56,000 which is about one-third what Tesla costs. It is absolutely crazy to understand how Tesla manages to equip their cars with so much power and performance and yet price them so low.
And it isn’t just about power and performance, the Model 3 also delivers a better range than the Taycan. In its standard guise, the Taycan delivers about 225 miles of range while the Turbo S iteration goes for about just 201 miles on a single charge. The Model 3P on the other hand can haul up to about 315 miles and that’s significantly more than the Porsche.
Naturally, when you’re paying close to $200,000, you do not want to be smoked by a car that costs just 1/3rd of yours. So where does Taycan get it wrong? Or rather where does Tesla get it right?
Well, it’s never always about the sheer power numbers that help the car go fast but aerodynamic drag and weight are also important factors that affect the car’s performance. The Model 3P uses 2 electric motors for an all-wheel-drive setup and sends nearly 483 horses and 486 lb-ft of torque to the road. The car weighs just over 4,000 lbs. and that’s what makes the difference.
The Porsche Taycan Turbo S churns out a bonkers 750 hp and 774 lb-ft of torque from a dual-motor all-wheel-drive setup. The Turbo S is quicker than the Tesla by 3-tenths of a second, doing 0-60 mph in 2.8 seconds. The Porsche maxes out at around 161 mph.
With that kind of power on offer and sighting how quick the Tesla can go with 480 horses, you might expect the Taycan Turbo S to go even faster and quicker but it’s the Porsche’s weight that plays the spoilsport. The Taycan Turbo S weighs 5,060 lbs and that’s what hampers the performance.
Now, we know that 0.3 seconds do not make all that difference and you’re never going to test and record the acceleration times of your vehicle in real-world conditions. The point here is that the Model 3P is capable of giving a $200,000 car coming from the house of a brand that has a history of building performance machines, a run for its money. We find that very interesting.
Of course, Porsche fanboys may argue that the Taycan essentially is a luxury vehicle and it gets all the premium bells and whistles that the Tesla hardly gets. And we agree with that. The Taycan is a luxury vehicle, it comes loaded with upscale materials and features and equipment along with the snobbery of the Porsche crest and the Model 3P hardly offers any of that.
But that’s exactly what the future of the car market is going to look like. Today, there’s hardly any 4-door, IC engine-powered car in the market that has 400+ horses under the hood, does 0-60 mph in nearly 3 seconds, and has a price tag of around $55,000. In the future, however, with electrification, there are going to be cars that would cost significantly lower but would be capable of out-performing some expensive, ultra-luxurious vehicles. Big power will not essentially command a bigger price tag. And the Model 3P just proves that. All the Tesla cars prove the point.
Take the Model S Plaid for instance. The Model S Plaid’s motors deliver over 1000 horses combined and the full-size luxury sedan is capable of doing 0-60 mph in just 1.99 seconds. No other luxury sedan in the market, ICE-powered or electric, has that kind of performance numbers or power on offer.
Even the ultra-expensive and ultra-powerful hypercars like the Bugatti Chiron and the Koenigsegg Jesko are slower than the Model S Plaid by a few tenths of a second. And the price tag- the Model S Plaid starts at around $129,000 while these gas-guzzling hyper-cars cost millions of dollars.
